Two things that cost people more heat than the wood they buy. Both are easy to get right once somebody tells you, and nobody usually does.
Build the fire upside down
Most people build a fire bottom-up: paper, kindling, then logs on top. It works, eventually, and it smokes while it does.
Try it the other way round:
• Two or three large logs on the bottom, laid side by side with a small gap between them
• Two or three smaller logs across them, at right angles
• Six to eight kindling sticks on top, stacked Jenga-style so air can move through
• One firelighter tucked into the kindling, not underneath everything
Light the firelighter. The fire burns downward.
Why this works
The flue warms before the main load catches, so the draw is established early. That means far less of the smoke, stalling and door-opening you get lighting from underneath — and the glass stays clean.
Air is the control, not the wood
More fires are ruined by air management than by wood quality.
Air controls fully open until the fire is properly established and the flue is warm. That is usually ten to fifteen minutes, longer on a cold night or a cold chimney.
Closing it down too early is the single most common mistake. It causes:
• A fire that smoulders instead of burning
• Black glass within twenty minutes
• Tar and creosote in the flue, which is a chimney fire risk
• Visible smoke from your chimney, which annoys neighbours and in a smoke control area is a problem
Once it is roaring, bring the air back gradually until the flames are lively but not racing. You are looking for steady flame, not a furnace and not a sulk.
Refuelling without losing the room
• Open the air control before you open the door, and wait a few seconds. It stops the smoke rolling out at you
• Add fuel onto a bed of embers, not onto ash or a dying fire
• Two or three medium logs beat one enormous one. More surface area means it catches faster and burns cleaner
• Leave a small ash bed. An inch or so insulates the firebox and helps the next fire. Do not clear it out completely every time
• For overnight, use your densest wood — oak or our chunky logs — on a good bed of embers, and close the air down slowly once it has caught
The four rules of storing firewood
Get these right and seasoned wood keeps improving. Get them wrong and kiln dried wood goes backwards.
1. Off the ground. Pallets, bearers, breeze blocks, anything. Wood sat on soil or grass wicks moisture straight back up through the bottom row, and you will not notice until you get to it.
2. Open sides. Air has to move through the stack. A sealed store is a damp store. This is the rule people break most often with the best intentions.
3. A roof that sheds water away. Rain off the top and away from the wall behind, not down into the stack.
4. Sun and wind if you can get it. South or west facing, somewhere the wind reaches. A sheltered corner behind the shed is the worst place in most gardens.
What not to do
• Do not wrap a stack in a tarpaulin down to the ground. It traps moisture underneath and you end up with wetter wood than you bought. Cover the top only, and leave the sides open
• Do not store a winter’s worth indoors. Bring in a few days at a time. It finishes drying in the warm and you are not bringing insects into the house
• Do not stack tight against a house wall. Leave a gap for air, and for your brickwork
• Do not stack it where the trailer cannot reach. Worth thinking about before delivery day rather than after
How much space you actually need
Roughly one square metre of floor at a metre high per loose cubic metre of logs.
• 0.5m³ (bulk bag) — Footprint: 1m × 0.5m · Roughly: A large wheelie bin
• 1m³ — Footprint: 1m × 1m · Roughly: A small wardrobe
• 2m³ — Footprint: 2m × 1m · Roughly: A double wardrobe
• 4m³ — Footprint: 4m × 1m · Roughly: A run along a garage wall
If you are short of space, that is what the bulk and barrow bags are for — buy smaller and more often, at a slightly higher price per cubic metre. If you have the room, a loose tipped load is always the cheaper way.
Where should the store actually go?
The best spot in most gardens is not the one people choose.
• South or west facing, so it gets sun and the prevailing wind
• Away from the house wall — or with a clear gap if it has to be close, for airflow and for your brickwork
• Not behind the shed. The sheltered corner feels sensible and is the dampest place you have
• Not under a tree. Drips long after the rain has stopped, and the canopy blocks the drying wind
• Reachable from where the trailer can get to, or you will be barrowing it further than you think
• On hard standing if possible. Slabs, gravel or concrete beat grass and soil every time
If none of that is possible, buy kiln dried and keep it somewhere sheltered. Good wood in a bad store ends up as bad wood.
Getting the last of the heat out of it
Small things, cumulatively worth a good deal:
• A stove thermometer costs about £15 and tells you whether you are running too cool (tar) or too hot (damage). Between 150°C and 250°C on the flue pipe is the usual sweet spot
• Sweep the chimney annually if you burn regularly. More often on an open fire
• Check the door rope seal once a season. A perished seal means you cannot control the air, and no amount of good wood fixes that
• Bring tomorrow’s logs inside tonight. Room-temperature wood lights faster and burns better than wood straight off a cold stack
• Buy a moisture meter. About £20. Split a log and test the fresh face, not the outside — the outside is always drier
None of that is complicated. It is just the difference between a stove that works and a stove that is a nuisance.